Random thoughts on the blue highways.
You never know what you will find on the blue highways. Particularly when the choice at an intersection is controlled by the roll of a die. About the only rule is that highway onramps don't count as an intersection. You don't even have to roll the die. If one road looks interesting, go for it.

About Me

Don't look for me much on the big news sites, I skim through them, but rarely find much that is worth commenting on. As a young son once said "We don't watch TV news, dad won't let us watch violence programs." I still don't.
Interests are religion, marketing theory (that is not an oxymoron,) Advertizing, digital photography, APOD, and historically, rocket science.
e-mail: jcarlinbl@gmail.com
The literary version is found at Thinking On the Blue Roads
The raw data for which can be found on The Blue Roads of Thinking.

Sunday, August 30, 2015

It doesn't. And it doesn't happen with most humanists with the
possible exception of ex-ROMAN CATHOLICS. Even the ex-Catholics won't
tell you what your rules are for you, they will tell you how those rules
don't work anymore for them.

Many
milk humanists have at least studied the major religions, and may
indeed appreciate the benefit for believers of the faiths. It is kind
of a fun argument among atheists about which proponents of the faith
were actually atheists. The musicians, artists, and craftspeople that
provided the fundamentals of the ritual. Since they had to understand
the faith from the outside as it were to get commissions, they could
focus on the "hot buttons" to make their work meaningful for believers.
Many of the famous Catholic masses and prayers, and even more of the
protestant music were probably composed by non-believers.

The
issue here between beliefs even buddhist and proper humanist will tell
you. It aint that a humanist is better then a buddhist or more
logical then catholic or smarter then a bible thumper. RCCan

A little too much projection there. There is no humanist way.
Humanists aren't better than any other human, which is what the humanism
is about. At least conditional respect for all humans is part of
humanism. Some humanists try to maintain radical respect for all.
Humanists are different however in that there is no belief, not even
belief in humans that is required, and humanists are not a group. They
do form social groups, that is a human trait, but the social groups are
based on a common interest rather than a belief and generally are
inclusive.

Many humanists
have had a horrible experience in leaving a belief system and may for
that reason condition their respect for others on not being a part of
that particular belief system. It is an non-rational condition, but
humanists are human, and excommunication, disfellowshipping, shunning,
and other denials of social support are the most painful experiences for
any social animal, as it is frequently a death sentence, either by
being incapable of self-support, depression or overt suicide. This is
especially true for GLBTs, etc. who are cast out as sinners.

Humanists,
in particular humanists who have left dogmatic religions can be
especially helpful to the GLBTs who have been forced to leave friends
and family over dogmatic differences. Their inclusive interest based
social groups provide major social support for those cast out. Some are
even non-dogmatic religious groups that provide a comfortable Sabbath
ritual for former believers.

Humanists
generally separate themselves by not being able to believe any longer,
but support groups are easier to find, sometimes within the faith, and
the separation from the patriarchs while traumatic is not life
threatening. But trauma, even self-chosen trauma leaves scars, and
avoiding additional scars by exposure to the shunning group is at least
understandable.

Thursday, August 27, 2015

I can’t believe that one would
seriously suggest that a widely believed good found in the text doesn’t
exist. “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” – the principal of
empathy that many atheists on this board seem to think they have
copyrighted and patented – is one such widely believed good. EOb

Believing
it and then ignoring it, or actively trashing it with every word that
comes out of your mouth and every action you do is hardly an example of
textural good morality.

The
Pentateuch version is Lev 19:18 "Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge
against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I
am the Lord" is hardly a radical moral edict for a social animal or a
tribal human. But OK if practiced dilligently. For Jews does that mean
Hasidim are loved? I understand that some Jews have rejected them. For
Christians are JWs and LDS Christian and vice versa? For Muslims is
ISIS your neighbor?

Jesus
radicalized the whole thing. When challenged "Who is your neighbor"
told the parable of the Good Samaritan. Keep in mind that it was a
Samaritan who refused Jesus hospitality, causing him to shake the dust
off his sandals. In modern day terms think of dark skinned immigrants
without documentation. Or for Paul competitive sects that practiced
temple prostitution. Are either "loved as thyself?"

beliefnet Primitive small groups were generally a
bit larger than 50 but about 250 seems to be maximum community size.
They generally were egalitarian or matrilineal. The dominant male seems
to be an artifact of larger groups in war prone areas usually religious
wars.

The animal
kingdom is a lot more varied than at first studied by male dominant
biologists. It is frequently the alpha female that runs the group while
the impressive male is relegated to a protection or territorial role.
Even then the "fighting" is a ritual to practice defense rather than a
quest for dominance. And generally the alpha female decides who mates
with whom. E.g. In a wolf pack in the wild the Alpha female chooses a
mate, or in many cases finds a mate and the two are the only breeders in
the pack. When the Alpha female dies the pack disintegrates and all go
off to find mates to establish their own packs.

Unfortunately in the modern world the male dominance model of the major
religions is pervasive in the west and schoolyard games through adult
gladiator battles are dominance games among males. Female preference is
of little importance. The dominant male gets the pick of the available
females, his choice not hers, and the rest are distributed according to
male status.

Female preferences in mates may have had
some evolutionary effect early on in human history, and in the cultures
that haven't been corrupted by Abrahamic religions, but in general where
marriages are arranged women's preferences don't matter. Putz has the
cause and effect reversed. Where awesome fighters are valued it is
among men only and the awesome fighters pick the women that appear to be
the best brood mares. Hence the social pressures for the appreciation
of airheads with big T & A.

beliefnet I certainly can deny out warlike
nature. All evidence is that before Abram came along and invented God,
humans were agricultural - herding communities or hunter - gatherers
where the ecology permitted it. Their gods (if any) were generally
earth/fertility oriented and community sustainability was an important
moral imperative.

War
was rare although not non-existent, as there were tribal leaders that
for one reason or another usually outgrowing their resource base could
try to take what they wanted by warfare. Usually settled communities
could defend themselves and the marauders failed usually when the
dysfunctional leader was killed.

Abram's
genius was inventing a leader that couldn't be killed because it didn't
really exist, and who divided all the world simply into us and them.
Them just didn't count. This was a successful concept, as poor young
men could be convinced that it was "their" fault they were poor and
horny and run off to battle for plunder, and women.

As
for the people who created the mythology, whether or not they were
inspired by God is moot, as they believed in God, and codified the
mythology based on that assumption. My belief or lack thereof in God
has nothing to do with what others believe. I also do not think that
50+% of the population that believe in Christianity and Islam and at
least pretend to read and abide by Scripture is "only a fraction."

I was not arguing that predatory tribes
did not exist before or even after Abram invented God. Tribal survival
is always an evolutionary imperative. If drought or other natural
disaster makes your community uninhabitable the tribe or community if
larger does what it takes to survive. Since arable land is usually
occupied and defended predation involves the expenditure of many
warriors. Those mass graves mentioned earlier may or may not have been
all victims of predation. In a battle of relatively equal weaponry one
would expect the attackers to have the most casualties. At
Crow Creek the lack of young women in the grave is more likely the
result of the defenders giving the most important members of the tribe
time to escape to safer ground than the biblical assumption that God
delivered the virgins to the victors. The site was defensible as noted
by the defensive trenches that the attackers had to overcome. The
assumption that they did is optimistic at best. The burning of the
settlement may well have been a defensive move to remove the incentive
for the attackers. The fact that the site was abandoned for several
weeks suggests to me that the attack failed with the loss and/or retreat
of the attackers and the villagers returned later to honor the dead
with a proper burial.

While
predation and defensive warfare may have been common in prehistory, the
long term survival of most communities on arable land suggests that
predation was a poor tribal survival strategy. That is until the Romans
came along with their emperor Gods emulated by the Christian God that
held all of "them" in contempt to be slaves and breeders, that predation
became a way of life and a relatively successful one at that.

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

So,
I'll ask you again: Can you think of any new insight gained from
calling it the 'God meme' than we had when we called it the 'God
concept?'freespirit

Meme
theory focusus on the transmission mechanisms: The hooks that embed the
meme in the brain. The concept being embedded is relatively
unimportant. It is not necessary to know much about God to understand
how the vuvuzelas get their version of God to become a strongly
buttressed belief system in the brain. It works whether the God concept
is God, Allah, YHVH, or Cthulhu.

The
God concept is impossible to deal with rationally, as the
characteristics of the concept must be defined before you can even talk
about it. Most believers don't even know what the God they believe in
is.

To many if not most biologists, the selfish gene approach is the best
idea anyone ever came up with for explaining altruism in the animal
kingdom. The only significant rival explanation, group selectionism, is
extremely controversial by comparison. The issue is not yet settled. Faust

For
biologists the gene is the only hammer they have to bang on things
with. Dawkins was a biologist who established his credibility by
showing how a gene for distinguishing brighter from darker areas in the
environment as an example could have survival value and drive the
evolution of complex visual structures collectively known as eyes. He
was necessarily working on individual members of the phyla he was
studying. As it became necessary to study more complex traits like
altruism the gene hammer became the wrong tool and group selection
became an alternative for social animals which are a relatively recent
evolutionary development. I suspect the two theories are not rivals,
but are different tools for investigating different evolutionary
structures.

The meme
theory, still in its scientific infancy (it's developer isn't even dead
yet) may well be the tool needed for studying group selection, as social
animals must have a non-genetic behavioral modification adaptation for
survival as a group. Group selection works in relatively few
generations which make biologists very uncomfortable. Predatory pack
wolves evolved extremely quickly into a larger social structure of
follower wolves and eventually dogs (and a smaller individual social
organization coyotes etc.) with essentially no genetic adaptation.
Dogs, wolves, and coyotes can crossbreed with viable offspring, although
the strong social differences make crossbreeding unlikely in normal
environmental conditions.

The
God meme has been extremely powerful in group selection at least for
predatory human groups. While it may not prove the existence of God as a
real thing, it certainly proves the existence of the collective
consciousness of the idea of God. Whether there is a significant
difference is not really a scientific question.

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

beliefnet NDEs that is extremely high stress
experiences, OBEs, anoxia, awe, wonder and are common human
experiences. Not all humans have all such experiences, but most have
experienced many of them. One might argue logically that how they are
interpreted is a clear indication of the fundamental basis of their
human experience. If any God or supernatural entity is the basis of
their human experience all will be attributed to that entity. If not
other explanations, including WTFWT, will be considered. If God has
never been a reasonable answer to any question it is not likely to be
even considered as an answer to WTFWT. If it remains as an important
experience some natural explanation even a speculative one will be found
and God will remain a belief for others irrelevant for an atheist who
by the way may or may not be a materialist.

A
NDE is commonly described as one's life flashing by as if in a time
lapse movie, which is the brains way of either finding a solution to the
predicament or preparing a dream like state for death. Believers
attribute this dream like state as heaven or hell, and the anoxia
induced light at the end of the tunnel as God. Believers in
reincarnation attribute the dream like state as preparation for the next
life. I know of one atheist who sees the dream like state as
indefinite in length as dreams often are, which may last apparently
eternally. He is aware that the appearance of eternal is false, or
perhaps has a holographic existence on the fabric of space-time. But in
any event, each person experiences that which will allow the brain to
shut down to a calm rest in peace.

JC
do you have ANY idea what the elements of this historical method even
is? Fact is that your dimissal of people's lifelong work without
knowing anything about it or them is your bias. Kwinters

I dismiss nothing. Everything is in the pot. Even the canonical garbage.

In
Bayesian analysis each bit of data is assigned a likelihood of being
relevant and correct. Biases of the contributor are part of the
equation. Also it is important to know what you are trying to study.

In
re. a Galilean Jewish preacher probably named Jesus or one of the
common cognates, who was strongly influenced by Hillel the Elder and the
Mithra myths and by his wife (who was never allowed to speak at his
gatherings according to Jewish religious traditions) I find his
existence to be nearly certain. One critical piece of authenticating
data is Paul's need for a popular, charismatic, contemporary preacher to
become his Christ. In
re. the words put in his mouth by oral history of contemporaries
including his wife who I find quite likely to be the Q source and nearly
as likely to be Mary Magdalene, I assign a high probability of
authenticity to all. Even in English translations.

In re. the disruptions at the Temple in Jerusalem I find them to be likely in essence and
consistent with his preaching in the sticks. That he pissed off the
Jewish authorities in some way to cause them to take action against him
is even more likely. Whether the Romans even cared is insignificant,
but the Jewish authorities probably did try to kill him. Such an
important challenge to their authority could not be ignored.

I
assign a low likelihood to actual death, but a reasonable probability
to his appearance to followers after his punishment by the authorities
as a spectacular blow off to his ministry and his resumption of a normal
life with family after the show. I find it unlikely that he was a
leader of any of the Jesus cults, his part of the show was over.

In
re. anything related to God and Christ, there is a high probability of
everything being fabulous stories made up by followers and the usurper
Paul. Truth value negligible, influence value high.

Wednesday, August 19, 2015

The
debate centers around how to criticize Islamic fundementalists who
promote violent views. New atheists point to the role of religion as a
motivating factor, but multiculturalists and theists on left don't want
to hold religion accountable for the evil it motivates. Kwinters

The human brain is necessarily a belief processor. See The Believing Brain by Michael Shermer.
Even those of us who claim to have no beliefs, at best know what know
what beliefs we have that are important and try with varying levels of
success to compensate when necessary.

New
atheists want to destroy religion and just like any extremists don't
care what collateral damage results. Progressives have no issues with
holding religion accountable for evil, they are just trying to rescue
the good from all the wreckage. New atheists seem to believe that carpet
bombing religion is necessary to get rid of the evil, and while it is
true that carpet bombing will get rid of evil, the question remains is
the cost/benefit ratio positive? Progressives say no. Believers will
believe in something anyway, see any deconvert. If the whole belief
system is destroyed, good and bad, they will cling to some of the
beliefs usually the bad ones that feed their ego, and the result may be
worse than the religious belief system that was destroyed.

Fundamentalist
Christianity has some saving graces. Even though all are sinners and
need to be saved by Christ they must be aware of their sins and beg for
mercy. Fundamentalist Christianity was destroyed in part not by
attacking the beliefs but by reinforcing the dysfunctional ones: We are
all sinners and forgiven by grace so let's just wallow in sin. The
worst is the sin of Bibliolatry.

Notice
that Pope Francis is attacking specific sins leaving the Belief System
intact. A much more difficult row to hoe, but then he can't use the
carpet bomb strategy. His target is Christianity and fundamentalist
Christianity at that, but by focusing on and admitting to the evil that
is part of Christianity. Whether he will survive the campaign is an
open question but that is par for the course for progressives.

Bottom line: For good or evil, the Bible didn't motivate people to do anything they weren't already doing. freespirit

Who was doing it, and for how long?

The
Bible depicts a culture of sheep herding desert marauders. They were
kicked out of or chose to leave three thriving communities. I think it
is safe to assume that their lifestyle made life difficult for them in
the civilizations they left. When they finally got to Egypt their
leader sold his followers into slavery, and whored out his beautiful
wife to gain power. What God had to do with all of this is pretty clear
from the stories we have. Who invented God or what culture was
invented by God is relatively unimportant. God was a critical driver
for all behavior of this small, uncivilized and unpleasant band of
people who chose to live differently from all civilized societies in the
region. By the time the Torah/Bible was written it told them to do what
that small tribe had done since its founding Patriarch began this
uncivilized lifestyle. The fact that they left or were driven out of
four civilizations (including Egypt) suggests that they were doing
something very different from what the rest of civilization was already
doing.

At some point
the agricultural community of the Canaanites was weakened probably by
drought to the point that God could "deliver them" to the marauders.
Whether God had anything to do with the drought is left to the
imagination of the reader. They thrived for a while, and conquered
other communities for food, slaves, and wives/concubines.

But
this is the story not of civilization but of a small group of outliers
who were driven by their God to an outlying existence wherever they
went.

What Paul did
with this story is a sin and a shame, but was successful in North Africa
and Europe. The rest of the world went its own civilized ways until the
middle of the second millennium when this marauding religion conquered
three continents, and colonized much of the rest of the world using
modern military killing equipment and mobility provided by large ships
to carry it and the poor young men who did the killing.

Civilization may be finally recovering from this depredation, the moral
progress bandied about on this board, but is resisted on all fronts by
the God, His followers, and the poor young men who are given hope by
this God.

Whether this
God is real or imaginary is really irrelevant. The fact and it is a
fact that he is believed in by followers is critical to their past
successes.

Recognizing that this particular God is not worth believing in is the first step in ridding the world of His depredation.

Monday, August 17, 2015

When
the popes led their faithful to war, they didn't do it by changing
human nature to suit their purpose. Warlike behavior satisfies the human
need to prove ourselves superior to others.

A totally unsupported and probably false assumption. Nothing in human
evolution indicates warlike behavior. See aforementioned fragile
skull. Humans evolved by cunning not force. Selecting agricultural
crops so they were not dependent on dangerous foraging, domesticating
food animals rather than hunting dangerous game, coopting follower
wolves for predator warnings, (not exclusive to humans by the way)
breeding aggressive "sheepdogs" to protect the herds and domesticated
small feline predators to control small rodents that domesticated
themselves.

The only
significant predators were anti-social exploitive humans who raped,
pillaged and burned those who had a sustainable agricultural society.
Even those sustainable societies used aggressive war as a last resort
preferring to expend extensive resources on defensive structures to
protect their cultures. See the Great Wall of China, and Castles atop
sheer cliffs. A few defenders with projectile weapons spears, rocks and
fireworks (another cunning invention to avoid proving ones tribe
superior.) could hold off invading hordes almost indefinitely.

It took Abram, the God he created in his own image, and baby factories to make war and pillage a viable cultural strategy.

The hard part for theists is admitting they have become the moral
source they wanted to worship. In fact, they are now in a position to
condemn their god as immoral based on secular principles of human
rights. Kwinters

lt is not
hard at all. I know some Catholics and many Jews that for all intents
and purposes are atheists. It was a good Catholic that told me that the
"Thy God" of the First Great Commandment is whatever you want Herm to
be. She describes her God as an inner voice that she can converse with
as a friend to help her decide what to do in difficult situations. It
is easier to call it "Mary" than Raggedy Ann, because Raggedy Ann
actually has a form. (I did ask.) Her indoctrination makes Mary the
mother of all good things, and as a mother it is easy to transfer that
voice inside her head from mom to Mary.

For
many of the Jews I know, (a biased sample) God is an ancient guide no
longer relavent to the modern world, and is nothing but a word in a
prayer. Comfort food for inner peace. The Shema, commonly the
Deuteronomy 6:4-9, is a centering ritual where G-d and "God's Kingdom"
is whatever you want to make of your life.

I have sung the Shema and Ave Marias,
reverently as is mandatory to convey the meaning to believers, and
using the interpretation of God from my friends I have no problem as an
atheist attaching my own personal meaning to the word. Mostly
Pantheist, APOD is my worship focus, although in the Sierra, the "Range
of Light" dominates. If this makes me a believer, so be it. I am in
good company.

Sunday, August 16, 2015

beliefnet Lets not draw cave men BS conclusions
from a Christian BS study. Women's taste in male appearance changes
like hemlines. If Putz was really interested in evolution he would look
at cross cultural traits rather than the misogynist Penn State
Christian/football violent culture. Probably at least half the men in
the world do not have big muscles, heavy facial hair, square jaws, teeth
that clench to take facial violence, (he forgot that one) deep voices,
and a propensity to violence.

East
Asians, South Asians, Africans, and what we know of indigenous people
all lack most of those features, and women and men are generally the
same size and shape. Lithe, flexible, versitile muscles good for other
things than wielding clubs. Dexterity in both genders. A generally
small face to make room for a bigger brain, in short a body and face
designed by evolution for versatility, adaptability and cooperation.
Their fighting style (when forced to fight) is not strength but
adaptability and expending as many men as necessary to overwhelm the
enemy and not incidentally protect the women and children. A few planes
with Kamikaze pilots can destroy a battleship and a whole bunch of
square jawed, heavily muscled, violence loving men.

Three
millennia of war and violence in the Middle East and Europe have
changed not so much women's preferences, but which man got the harems,
and ownership of the baby factories to make more men with big muscles,
heavy facial hair, square jaws and teeth that clench to mitigate blows
to the face (the only exposed area for armored men) and a propensity to
violence. The fact that they are an evolutionary minority speaks
volumes about the propensity to violence in spite of their high birth
rate.

beliefnet I certainly can deny our warlike
nature. All evidence is that before Abram came along and invented God,
humans were agricultural - herding communities or hunter - gatherers
where the ecology permitted it. Their gods (if any) were generally
earth/fertility oriented and community sustainability was an important
moral imperative.

War
was rare although not non-existent, as there were tribal leaders that
for one reason or another usually outgrowing their resource base could
try to take what they wanted by warfare. Usually settled communities
could defend themselves and the marauders failed usually when the
dysfunctional leader was killed.

Abram's
genius was inventing a leader that couldn't be killed because it didn't
really exist, and who divided all the world simply into us and them.
Them just didn't count. This was a successful concept, as poor young
men could be convinced that it was "their" fault they were poor and
horny and run off to battle for plunder, and women.

As
for the people who created the mythology, whether or not they were
inspired by God is moot, as they believed in God, and codified the
mythology based on that assumption. My belief or lack thereof in God
has nothing to do with what others believe. I also do not think that
50+% of the population that believe in Christianity and Islam and at
least pretend to read and abide by Scripture is "only a fraction."

Since
Torah establishes the moral context of the relationship of husband,
mainly in Deuteronomy 24 but throughout the Pentateuch we can clearly
state that Kristi's statement is logically airtight with respect to the
Bible which claims most of Torah as Scripture.

When
talking about the Bible, Torah, or Qur'an as Scripture it is necessary
to assume God exists, as all clearly state that He does. Whether or not
the men who wrote scripture were divinely inspired (another possibly
false assumption: one author may have been a woman documenting the God
inspired Hebrew culture but probably not directly inspired by God.) The
culture documented in Scripture was dominated by God's laws, morals,
mores, and whims. Therefore the people documenting the culture whether
inspired by God or not were reflecting one God's Culture. Other
cultures may have had entirely different laws, morals, mores and even
different Gods. There are other Gods mentioned in Scripture.

From
Scripture we only know about one culture, which was dominated by God.
We have no documentation of negative attitudes about women in any
culture which preceded or co-existed with the culture of Scripture.
Data from aboriginal cultures and agricultural cultures generally show
that women were at least equal if not specially respected and protected for their
ability to perpetuate the species.

Yes
this is what I think about. And you can go further than 'culture'.
Science says men evolved to be violent. And our closest relatives in the
trees are in male dominant hierarchy. So religion didn't create these
things. Biology did. Curious

Neither premise is clearly supported by "Science." See Bonobos which are our closest simian relatives.

If
Homo Sapiens evolved to be violent we would look more like Neanderthals
and Klingons. The human skull is evolved to avoid violence. The brain
is easily concussed and if violence is anticipated some sort of a
helmet is needed to avoid damage to the fragile skull. Note that the
Neanderthals were bigger, stronger, smarter and had a protected brain
but still lost out to Sapiens, they could rape Sapiens women, but we
couldn't rape theirs. (No Neanderthal mDNA in humans,)

Perhaps
some modern versions of Christian, Muslim and Jewish have reinterpreted
the "us vs. them" teachings of their God, but historically particularly
their earliest traditions they have that teaching as an integral part.
You look at the parts of the world where Christianity and Islam are
dominant and the fate of the indigenous religions (they are essentially
destroyed) the truth of the above assertion is obvious.

That
they learned it from the stories of Moses is also undeniable. God led
the Hebrews out of out of Egypt, to the promised land of Canaan where
God "delivered up to them" the indigenous people, destroyed the
indigenous religions and gave the Israelites their promised land. At
least for a while.

The
Hebrews apparently originated in the the fertile agricultural community
of Ur which they left for unknown reasons for Haram in Turkey another
agricultural community. Their original leader Abraham (Abram) was led
by God to Canaan, another agricultural community which God promised to
Abraham and all his seed, Why the Hebrews left Ur, and Haram for Canaan
is not clear, but from what little we know about Abraham, he was not a
particularly nice person although rich and exploitive. There is no
accounting for the taste of Gods.

Thursday, August 13, 2015

Your thesis then, is "the very existence of religion is an affront to womens' progress", correct? IronLDS

Talk
about misinterpreting a post and fighting a strawman! But to respond to
the strawman, religious influence in Western society is
an affront to women's progress, as it is the source of the property
status of women and the concept that women should STFU and stay home.
All the talk of separate but equal roles is just more religious BS to
justify keeping women barefoot, uneducated and pregnant.

As noted earlierhumanist
men support women in all roles totally ignoring their haughty status as
made in the image of God. I even know of humanist men who assume the
role of househusband to provide their children with proper nurturing
while their wives work full+ time at theireconomic comparative advantagerole
in society. She may well be a better mom than he is but her overall
worth to society is higher as a medical professional e.g. than his as
contract laborer. More commonly they share both roles usually to the
detriment of their careers, more so for the woman, due to the fact that
she is working above her station, but both chose children and careers,
rather than not having children. Which by the way is a common choice
for humanists as their service to their society as full+ time
professionals may be more important to them than raising cannon fodder.
Their legacy is their social service rather than another mouth for the
world to feed.

But
until we have good evidence of their existence, they don't exist for
us. The best an example can be is in the 'probably real' subset of the
set of 'imaginary things'.

Thus for any specific candidate,
like a real Donald Duck, a real teapot in orbit beyond Mars, a real
Higgs boson or (if only we knew what a god is) a real god, it doesn't
exist until we have good evidence of its existence. Blü

I would as usual include in the existence category any imaginary thing
that is consistently describable by any rational human who has been
exposed to the imaginary concept. Donald Duck is an imaginary thing
that is a charicature of a duck, which wears a naval themed vest and hat
and speaks aphorisms of determinable levels of satirical, ironic, and
metaphorical truth. Therefore, Donald Duck objectively exists. The
teapot was not adequately described even by Russell to be consistently
describable by any rational human and therefore remains in the set of
imaginary things with no real existence.

A
real God may exist for a group of people but generally the description
is about as defined as Russell's teapot so that for the rational human
must remain in the category of imaginary thing. As an example Zeus may
be considered a real God for the ancient Greeks. Uniformly describable
as a charicature of a human man, wielding lightning bolts as a weapon,
and speaking aphorisms of determinable levels of satirical, ironic, and
metaphorical truth. He was even clearly described enough to be made
into statues recognizable by any rational Greek as Zeus.

The
problem with God in the thread title, is that all believers describe
Herm differently if they describe Herm at all in recognizable terms, and
therefore the rational human has no consistent evidence to determine
any sort of existence even as an imaginary thing.

(And I'm leery of that word 'transcending' - it's too often an attempt to smuggle nonsense into conversations.) Blü

I find transcendence to be a perfectly good word for the natural
ability of the mind to focus on a single task. Normally physical,
athletes and musicians call it the zone, but can be purely mental. The
mental state is harder to achieve but can be trained just as the
physical state is trained. The problem is that it can be focused just
as well on imaginary things as real ones, so it is important to
recognize explicitly the focus of the transcendent state. TheTranscendentalistsfocused
it inward, to discover what it is to live meaningfully as a human, and
atheists should acknowledge our debt to their efforts.

The fear of death and loss are enough to turn some people's brains off
and stop them from questioning the pure nonsense that religion spouts.

If from birth it is drummed into your brain that nothing you can do in
this life is important to God: that everything you do including those
things that are natural and necessary for the survival of the species is
sinful and must be expiated by a vuvuzela; and that even after death
you will be judged not by what you have done but what you have done that
is forgiven; it is little wonder that people are "tired of living, and
feared of dying."

If
from birth it is drummed into your brain that your mission in life is to
improve the lives of your neighbors and the environment in which they
live so that all children can look forward to better lives; and that you
only get one shot at doing so; it is easy to "live a life worth dying
for" (Forrest Church). Some do a little, others do a lot, but what you
do is more important than how much: A little girl, Alex Scott, was a
victim of childhood cancer. She decided to do what she could to help
other victims of childhood cancer. She couldn't do much, but at 4 years
old she convinced her family to help her set up a lemonade stand and
donated the proceeds to her hospital "for research." Sure a few bucks
wouldn't do much research, but others noticed her determination and set
up their own Alex's Lemonade stand,
By the time she died at 8 she and her friends had raised millions. You
might still see an Alex's Lemonade Stand, if you do stop and cool off
and remember a little girl whose life was worth dying for.

Wednesday, August 12, 2015

It might be helpful to some of us if you could illustrate what you mean by 'really supporting women'.....JewOne

Christine probably has met only one, as such men are extremely rare in
any society and practically non-existent in Western Religions. First
and most important such a man will view all women as potential partners
in making society better for all people. This means using his male
privilege to help them achieve whatever goals they choose to aspire to.

If he is better at STEM
e.g. he will spend his educational years helping women who aspire to
STEM success learn his skills rather than merely honing his own skills
for a better chance at success for himself. (This is not entirely
selfless as mentoring is one of the best skill honing techniques known.)

At work he will use his male privilege to mentor and promote women and other minorities to theirPeter Principle levelin
the organization, even at the expense of his own advancement. (It will
affect his advancement as most organizations are paternalistic and
"Privilege hath its Rank.")

He
will choose a wife based on her potential to make a better society
rather than her ability to improve his own position in society, and will
sacrifice his career goals if necessary to give her the opportunity to
achieve hers. This means changing diapers, doing housework, cooking
more than his share of the meals, taking the kids to piano lessons,
doctors, and emergency rooms even if it means leaving a board meeting,
even managing the middle of the night feeding, (when the kid cries he
gets up, brings the kid to mom, hangs herm on the teat (mom won't really
wake up), changes the diaper and sings herm back to sleep.)

NB
this does not necessarily mean choosing a business career woman. Many
of the opportunities especially for women to make a better society are
volunteer activities, but done properly take as much time as a full time
job.

Just the tip of the iceberg for a man really supporting women. Some will guess the rest. Most won't give a damn.

So,
let's discuss. How does a woman's biological makeup contribute to the
actual physical requirements placed upon them?

In other words, there are two fountains in a
village. Both men and women are free to drink from either fountain. One
fountain is easily accessible and within the village center. The other
fountain is at some distance away, though the walk is pleasant and
scenic. In practice, most of people drink from the nearer fountain but
more men than women travel to the far fountain, though both men and
women drink from both. Jewsha

Biological differences from a to z women
gestate and nurture children. Women will do this no matter what their
social status is. It is called survival of the species. Rape dolls or
rich man's arm and bed candy children are born and raised.

Raising
children is a time and labor intensive activity. If women's social
status is that they not only raise the children but feed and clean up
after the men tracking mud in from the beautiful, inspiring distant
fountain, chances are good that they will choose the nearby less
inspiring fountain. And if the men need lots of man-children to defend
the inspiring distant fountain from the heathen, spacing children
naturally will be a forgotten dream from an earlier age. She will
pleasure her man once a week when fertile whether she feels up to the
next child or not. This is of course a free choice like the nearby
fountain as the option is being the rape doll. If he is a real Mensch
he will say please.

I find it ironic that feminism is supposed to be about women being able to choose their lives, yet so many actual feminists get mad when women make choices that the feminists don't like.IronLDS

I
suppose it would be ironic if that is what they did. While there are
probably extremists who will personify their attack on the system that
supports this choice and indeed forces it on many women. But they are
really mad about the system that in some influential religions
conditions women from birth into the brood mare role, and justifies
higher pay for men because "they have to support their brood mare."

These
days being a brood mare for a "financially secure man" is a cushy job
at least until he is unable or unwilling to support his family, or
decides that a more attractive brood mare will advance his career.

At
that point his brood mare becomes a "welfare queen" as she tries to
support his kids with no help from him, and no educational tools to
support anything but minimum wage service jobs which in most states are
inadequate to support a family without government assistance and in any
event do not give her the time necessary to raise her kids to be
anything besides cannon fodder in one war or another: the war on drugs
or a foreign war if she has the connections to get her kids into the
military.

It is the system that is broken, not the women who are brought up to exploit it if they are fortunate.

To
the extent that it stays within the church culture and the church
culture takes care of its own failures I have no real issue with the
system. It is just another business model. Mormons and to a lesser
extent Jews and Catholics are business cultures more than churches, and
as such have the right to compete in the larger society just like any
other group. I think eliminating half their population from productive
work in a technological society is a losing business model, but that is a
testable hypothesis which may or may not prove to be true.

I
could suggest that such feelings of moral outrage offer survival value,
which is why we have them; in which case they offer no insight into
"the value of the human." My point, which was about the inconsistency
between an evolutionary point of view and ascribing worth to humans,
remains unanswered.Thoughtfultheist

Apologies
for missing that. The evolutionary point of view is ultimately the
survival of the species. Blather about selfish genes and selfishness
notwithstanding. For social animals like humans the welfare and worth
of the group is paramount. A group that breaks up leaving the weak
(unworthy) to predators soon has no one left to defend the group. In
evolutionary terms extinction. In human terms "First they came for the
unbelieving humans. No one spoke up. Then they came for idolatrous
humans. No one spoke up. Then they came for believing humans. No one
spoke up." What is the worth of humans?

Sunday, August 9, 2015

People have hypothesized that perhaps the issue wasn't the offerings of Cain and Abel themselves so much as the conditions thereof and the intent behind them. IronLDS

The
Yahwistic view of God is clearly the stories of marauders in the desert
subsisting on their sheep that they move from one fertile area to
another after destroying the earlier ones by overgrazing.

The Elohim created a beautiful productive earth for humans, men and
women created in the image of the Gods. Yahweh didn't like this place it
was too nice and easy to live in, and most important men and women had
an equal place in it. A place where men and women worked together to
maintain and sustain this paradise. Note that childbirth was a natural
and painless process something else that Yahweh didn't like.

So Yahweh trumped up some BS about women knowing too much and kicked His Chosen People people out of this agricultural paradise into a hostile environment where life would be difficult, childbirth painful, and agriculture nearly impossible.

Just to make His intentions clear, He rejected Cain's hard won
agricultural offering, and blessed Abel's exploitive herding. Cain
wandered off to join his farming brethren and was never heard of again.

Adam and Eve's other
children learned the lesson well, and gave up agriculture entirely as
they could count on Yahweh to deliver unto them agricultural communities
for plunder, rape and pillage, the plunder being the stored food and
seed grain needed for a sustainable community in an arable space.
Oops, my bad, it wasn't rape it was the provision of wives for the
conquerors to replace the poor young men lost in the battle. Not for
the poor young men on the front lines, they were all killed for the
glory of Yahweh. Just for the harems of the blessed leaders that
directed the war from behind the lines.

Although the conquered women tried to introduce sustainability into the
culture by introducing agriculture timing holidays into the Yahwistic
culture, they never really succeeded in creating one. Speculation on
why will be left to the reader. This plunder, rape and pillage life style proved to be quite successful, and religions based on the Yahwistic traditions have continued with varying levels of success to this day.

I don't blame the Yahwist for this life style. She tried to show in every case what an asshole this God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel was, but apparantly men like assholes that let, yea demand, that they plunder, rape and pillage since it is easier than trying to do something useful for the good of the society.

Saturday, August 8, 2015

Most studies of aboriginal tribes
give lie to this assertion. Women have equal value in agricultural
settlements which predated the Hebrews by 6 or 7 millennia. The men did
the muscle work of preparing the land (breeding season for the herds or
prey animals), the women planted, tended the crops and harvested, while
the men provided the meat either by herding or hunting.

No,
it does not. Only the most superficial and facile reading ( and one
which leaves out most of the narrative) would support your contention. rocketJew

Because
you are used to, as are all believers, a heavily interpreted reading
variously known as Apologetics, Commentary, Bible Study, or Lessons.
This consists of taking a small bit of Scripture, at most a few verses,
studying the opinions of all that "explain" what it means and then
claiming to understand what it says. The verses are chosen carefully to
teach what the Rabbi, Priest, Pastor, or other vuvuzela wants to teach
about the religion.

One
of the many paths to rejecting the God of Scripture, quite common among
women, is to sneak a copy of one's Scripture "under the covers" and
read whole stories in context. Sometimes even, God forbid, the whole
thing. It is amusing to read the stories of the Yahwist in one sitting as a novelette about God.
I recommend Rosenberg's translation for English speakers. It is short,
but surprisingly contains most of the stories in the Bible that
everybody remembers. Whether or not as Bloom suggests in The Book of J the
Yahwist was a highly educated female courtesan, the misogyny of God is
laid on so thickly that only a man can believe it is actually the word
of God. But then again, for male believers "Too much is never enough."

Almost as good is
reading the 613 "commandments" straight up, no interpretation, in any
language in one sitting. Any woman who can make it through that, will
need intensive therepy by a Rabbi, Priest, Pastor, or other vuvuzela to
avoid running, kicking and screaming, from the God that spake them. It
is little wonder that women and girls were not permitted to even have
their own copy of their Scripture to read unsupervised and were never
permitted to study scripture without the associated "teachings" even
then only in tiny slices of the original.

Something
of great significance happened early on in the history the Middle East.
Some life altering event left an indelible mark on the world view of
the inhabitants as conditions went from very good to very bad. A
pessimistic, hostile, anti-women and anti-nature world view emerged.
Unlike any worldview the world has ever seen."christine3

Archeological
climate studies suggest that a major drought in the Levant beginning
just before 2000 BCE with attendant famine, plagues, and cultural stress
especially in agricultural communities (and in other fertile areas at
different times) opened the way for marauding nomads to plunder the
surviving stressed farming communities. Hmmm, rivers turning to mud or
blood, locusts, death of first born and other children, frogs leaving
the wetlands.... sound familiar?

What
is a necessary resource for marauders? Lots and lots of poor young men
to die in battle. How do you get lots and lots of poor young men? Take
the women out of the economic production cycle of planting and reaping,
either by farming or gathering, and turn them into property as breeders
of warfare assets, that is poor young men.

If
you can get God to consider those dumb farmers as lesser beings to be
plundered, humanism that is treating all people, men, women and children
as worthy of respect is simply weakness.

Is
it just a story that God refused Cain's offering of produce? Cain who
then killed his herding brother and became an object of derision for all
time? I think not. Note that Cain used superior weaponry to kill the
herder. This is a fable for all time. The only way to deal with
marauders is with superior weapons. So much for peaceful coexistence.

Thursday, August 6, 2015

Kristi,
it's interesting that you claim to be oh-so-rational - yet when I make a
simple comment disagreeing with your tactics, you come out with all the
emotional and exaggerated phrases.JewOne

Kristi does not pretend to be rational at least as I read her posts.
She is an advocate for women's rights in religion, and in combating
belief systems rationality is useless. The fact that you have to argue
about tactics is an indication that your strategic position is
precarious to say the least.

While
Judaism has arguably made more progress in women's rights historically
as well as currently, perhaps you will admit that rational arguments
carry no weight at all with the majority of Jewish men. They have to be
shamed and emotional arguments are the only way to get through to
them.

Believe it or
not, Kristi is working for you and Shusha and all Jewish women as well
as all victims of religious misogyny. I tend to agree with her that the
Abrahamic God is the problem for women in religions, and all the
commentary in the world may not be enough to salvage the God of Abraham
even for the Jews.

Paul
was no piker in reinforcing the message, but then again he was trying
to salvage his version of Judaism from the ravages of Jesus and perhaps
Hillel both of whom IMO essentially rejected the God of the Torah for a
more personal user friendly deity.

No one who engages in rudeness,
mockery, and ridicule to try to affect oppression is doing so for
personal gain of any sort, let alone an elevated personal opinion in the
eyes of the oppressors or even the oppressed.

What
it achieves is getting people to think; even if only to think hateful
thoughts. Getting people to think about their beliefs in any way is the
only way to change them.

While
you are correct that it rarely achieves an immediate positive change
longer term it will make a difference. I hold that rude, mocker and
ridiculer George Carlin responsible for the fact that atheists can at
least check that box on a poll without fear of reprisal at least in some
countries and parts of the US, Fort Wayne excepted.

Progress towards thinking about the prevailing misogyny in religion
that spills over into the society dominated by those misogynic
religions.

Even the
attacks, diversions, and lies, make people "see the smoke" most people
will simply rubberneck, a few will figure out there is a fire, one or
two will try to do something to put out the fire, and as many if not
more will scream "Let it burn!"

But
just seeing the smoke makes people think about their belief about the
cause of the fire. And that thinking is inside the conceptual blocks
that protect the belief. Thinking inside the blocks is a disaster for
beliefs.

Wednesday, August 5, 2015

beliefnetThe guy most of the positive religious
memes came from was executed in a joint effort of religious and secular
authorities. Most of those positive religious memes were buried for
most of two millennia by religion many literally at Nag Hammadi.

Empathy
and compassion are evolved human traits normally ruthlessly suppressed
by religious and political authorities. It is necessary to get rid of
both religion and power politics to create humanistic society.

Opinions
on art and music are subjective. You tell me that your taste is better
and criticize mine and I will treat you like something that just
slithered out from under a rock.

Beliefs are not subjective. They
are either true or false. If you criticise one of my beliefs, and do it
respectfully, we can have an interesting debate. And, if you were
persuasive, you might even change my mind. However, if your idea of
debate is to ridicule my beliefs, then I'll treat you like something
that just slithered out from under a rock. freespirit

Obviously you don't follow art or music criticism. There are real
standards of what constitutes art and music that are educated opinions
that are not subjective at all. Like beliefs these educated opinions
can and do change as new forms get past the shock stage. But art and
music still matter, and only the new forms that comply with the human
goals of art and music to educate, stimulate, and move people.

Opinions
about beliefs change more slowly as they are indoctrinated earlier and
more intensively than opinions on art and music but change they do.
Sometimes it takes generations to do so as beliefs occupy a more
important area of the mind than esthetics. Social compliance with
beliefs is frequently a matter of survival. Esthetics is more like
manners; a group identifier rather than a coercive believe or die.

Saturday, August 1, 2015

beliefnetI communicate very clearly and insure
that what I write means exactly what I want it to mean. The fact that
what I write cannot get through your conceptual blocks says more about
your belief system than my writing.

I was a Boy Scout and an atheist and a
Scoutmaster and an atheist. Most of my ancestors that I know their
religious inclinations were atheists or at least made fun of their
clergy. It is rumored that an ancestor that left England circa 1611 for
Virginia was given the choice emigrate or die by his bishop.

Nonetheless,
I grew up in a religious society and being an out atheist was neither
important nor safe. The Scouts provided a great experience for little
money and my parents weren't wealthy enough for secular camps. So it was
"Trustworthy, loyal, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, thrifty,
brave, clean, irreverent" for me. I was interested in religions by that
time so going to church was no problem. I even went to a Pontifical
Mass at a Boy Scout Jamboree, certainly a first for an atheist. I could
sing dominos with the best of them.

The
scoutmaster was a different story. My UU church wanted to sponsor a
Boy Scout troop at a welfare hotel, the worst in NYC. They forgot to
tell the Scouts that I was an atheist so I became one of the
scoutmasters. A successful troop, as those things go. One of our
scouts was quite successful and had a nice Wiki write up courtesy of the
Scouts until the church quit Scouts due to discrimination and founded
the Navigators, a scouting experience for everybody. The two troops
they had, one in the South Bronx and one in Manhattan, became the first
chapters in the Navigators. I think BSA were relieved, as the scouts
were generally the wrong skin color as well as not too loyal to God and
the Republicans.

If
someone wants to believe in God that is their problem not mine. It
boils down to responsibility for actions. Blü seems to be right that do
what you are told to do is the default human condition. It doesn't
matter much who or what tells you what to do. When you do it it is their
fault not yours if it turns out badly. Even the vuvuzelas favorite
dodge when they are caught with their dresses up is that "It was God's
will." In other words it is not my fault.

That is why theists want God to exist.

Atheists, once they become adult realize that it is their fault. Life is finite and what they do with it is their responsibility.

"Live a life worth dying for." Forrest Church

Or the thought attributed to Cherokee traditions:

"When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced, Live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice."

There
is no one to blame if you don't live your life, and if the world
doesn't cry the failure is yours. It is not necessarily a comfortable
way to live, but at least you live. As El Cid says on another thread if
you believe in God you are dead when you are born, a puppet while you
are alive, and thrown away when you die. Maybe the dumpster will be
comfortable or maybe not. You will never find out.